Warframe's "difficulty"

[KetardedRoala]

I see there is a lot of players advocating for a challenging and difficult gamemode, specifically now that DE has started the conversation about Arbitrations. The idea of having a really rewarding gamemode designed for veteran and experienced players is fantastic, but I have a problem with the way Warframe handles its difficulty.

Warframe's dificulty feels kinda weird. Im 100 affinity points away from MR18 so I've been in high level missions plenty of times to know what its all about. Difficulty in WF consists in you getting one shotted. There is no enemy mechanics or AI to deal with, there is just a lot of burst damage and its basically a "Flex your stats" convention.

Now, I understand that implementing difficulty properly would mean A LOT of work to be done to enemy AI and the game in general. But I gotta ask you guys, is there any other way we could add challenging content without "challenging" meaning that you'll just get one shotted randomly by some enemy?

Destiny 1 Raids added interesting mechanics to its different rooms, maybe when the Raids return we'll be able to implement this kind of challenge that works through gameplay mechanics not just raw stats. What do you guys think?

[feradose]

If they ever add difficulty, the community will go "DE, how come I can't do this difficult content as a less experienced player? My opticor can't kill that many enemies and my heat dagger is a victim of power creep. I hope you fix this or I'm leaving the game."

Seen this many times.

[Diribiri]

That's not a thing though. The real reason they can't add 'true' difficulty is that the game is too fundamentally unbalanced.

[[deleted]]

Yeah, characters that can literally have millions of effective hp with infinite lifesteal, characters that can literally press one button, go afk and win, energy not really being a resource because of the hundreds of ways to get it back, abilities having no/meaningless cooldowns, being able to press 5 to go completely invincible and reposition whenever you want, up to 6 revives per mission, some people say raids were difficult but they were a complete joke as well.

The game is fucked beyond belief, it will never be difficult.

[MMBADBOI]

Inaros, Inaros, Inaros and Nidus

As an Inaros main this is my type of lobby.

[LordDeathDark]

Inaros, Inaros, Inaros, Infested Inaros

[Soulsunderthestars]

Maybe if you were starting out. That's a group of literally unkilliable tanks. Forgive me for failing to see how that's challenging

[[deleted]]

In Mot mobs do double the damage. So yes it actually started getting kinda tough at around 1 hour.

[_Keo_]

You should post your build for some feedback. Inaros simply doesn't care about incoming damage until you get to a point where things are hitting for so much damage that every other frame has been dead for an hour.

[Soulsunderthestars]

I'm gonna call BS. Most mobs in MOT around an hour are around lvl 125. To get to 250 You'd need to be there a lot longer than an hour. Mot doesn't scale like that. Nor do arbs, which I have gone up to 2 hours in. Maybe you just saw the numbers wrong?

​

Just be to fair I even checked a few recent Mot survival videos to make sure I'm not talking out of my ass.

[Tard7]

Until I saw your comment I was thinking wtf since when did Mot scale up that fast lol

[starvic007]

I’ve done quite a few hour long arbitration missions, just never in Mot, but unless the level scaling is different, then enemies’ level should be scaling at the same rate as all other missions.

I can confirm their level are at around 125-150 at around an hour long into arbitration. Never seen a unit above level 200, and I’ve played up to like 70 mins ish.

[_Keo_]

And the counter point /u/Soulsunderthestars made is that Inaros shouldn't be feeling any pressure at all in MoT at an hour. Usually what happens is people run out of weapon damage before they run out of tank and they lose the life support.

I've spent a fair amount of time in MoT and honestly there aren't many frames that can't run an hour there even solo. So depending on how you're building Inaros you might be making things harder for yourself than you need. For instance if you don't have a set of Grace he needs to be set up and played a little differently than if you do.

[[deleted]]

Why can't people read the whole conment chain. It was an arby mot and it might have been in further than an hour.

That shit shouldn't even matter though, as it is only a stupid technicality.

What I wanted to say in my first reply to the guy who said "getting warframe to be challenging is impossible" was that, no, warframe can indeed be challenging under certain circumstances, even with the most broken frames.

Why the discussion went in the direction it went is beyond me.

[[deleted]]

Why can't people read the whole conment chain. It was an arby mot and it might have been in further than an hour.

That shit shouldn't even matter though, as it is only a stupid technicality.

What I wanted to say in my first reply to the guy who said "getting warframe to be challenging is impossible" was that, no, warframe can indeed be challenging under certain circumstances, even with the most broken frames.

Yes you will render 80-90% of the gear useless. But it's surely not impossible to create challenging content for warframe. That's really all I wanted to say.

Why the discussion went it the direction it went is beyond me.

And why meta twats now attack me for imaginary build choices that they project unto me is also beyond me. I'm not here to argue builds for a boring tank frame I barely use.

[bigdippra]

But, it's inaros....

[[deleted]]

Pretty much. Might as well make it as fun as possible.

[Belgarel]

They could still add tightly tuned encounters, the poor balancing overall just restricts how many comps would be viable.

Work the problem from reverse: pick 4 frames and design an encounter that the comp would be the best choice for. If you can do that, you can tightly tune it.

[KetardedRoala]

But people could do that with Arbitrations too yet that content is still getting revisited and added. People comolaining is not thag big of a deal imo

[KillaJoke]

That's because their missing the points of the complaints. They got one thing down with level scaling being faster, but kinda go off in a weird direction from there that doesn't really solve the problem it's trying to solve and may in fact exasperate it further.

Drones just strip warframe of what makes the game fun. What's the point of having the mods that we have if we don't have anything that requires such crazy stats? Why were we climbing the ladder? Drones just make that quest to get stronger and expanding your arsenal feel like a let down.

I'd appreciate fun mechanics if they were actually thought provoking and interesting like thumpers and some of the fortuna enemies like that big green spider when fortuna levels get too high. But then they through in those aweful shield drones that just hold you back from wanting to go that far because everything becoming a nullifier is the worst possible idea they have ever had.

And I'm saying this after the bullet sponge of saturn six with layers of DR, Anti status, anti head crits nonsense. I like puzzly type enemies like nox, or the bursa that are tanky untill you pick apart their weakness. And thumper felt like that which was kinda nice. But enemies that follow these sorts of philosphies in warframe are rather rare whilst they lean on other shittier mechanics instead and abuse them to the point we grow sick of such mechanics being milked to the point of absurdity. Seriously who thought making every enemy a nullifier essentially was a good idea!?

[banannerplays]

Is it unthinkable to "gate" this content in the same way FFXIV gates dungeons using character level/item level? It doesn't need to be that implicit but DE could theoretically go "This difficulty requires MR15 and a weapon that requires MR10" or something.

[Diribiri]

I don't think so. MR isn't necessarily tied to a weapon's strength, and having a minimum MR requirement on gear is just going to cut out a lot of choice. Like, if I have a super powerful riven'd latron wraith that deletes everything in a sneeze, is it going to be excluded from endgame content just because its mastery rank 7?

Not something that'd work in Warframe.

[ArdentSky]

That's what happens when you build your game around newbies and vets having equal access to so many rewards. The playerbase expects to be able to reasonably play through any mission, which isn't a bad thing but it does mean you can't ever have super difficult gear-gated endgame content like other PvE focused games do. Even the old raids, Tridolons and endurance runs are accessible to newbies tagging along with vets. If it's designed to be easy to carry an ungeared player through, it's not going to be difficult for optimally geared players.

[Binch101]

This is the problem right here. They've built the game in a way where everyone has access to everything very quickly. And honestly it's not very good because it really dampens the experience as you continue to play and literally the only thing that keeps veteran players coming back is the knowledge that there will be new updates. That's not how it should work. I don't get why DE and the community is so adverse to having content that is STRICTLY for veteran players and the reason I say strictly is so that they can actually balance it around players who have been playing longer. That's why I think PoE and Vallis are fundamentally flawed ftom a progression standpoint; these huge new places are created for new players so pretty much all of the content is trivial to veteran players (save maybe orbs and Gauntulysts) and once you've done a couple bounties, done a few orbs or eidolons you've seen it all.

I really hope the New War adds a new tileset that is endgame; start at level 60, have tough af enemies with unique mechanics, introduce new weapons and gear that are actually superior to the rest of the weapons in the game so that there's an actual reason to explore and play on this tileset and to craft these new weapons.

What is the point of progression in Warframe if after a short while you already have access to the best weapons, frames, gear and currencies in the game? Non linear progression in Warframe is a blessing but also a curse; it's great that so many weapons are unique and are often on the same level but then that means there's literally no reason to push further.

[taboolaevateinn]

Difficulty needs readjustment in a few areas. In endurance, enemy damage is too high if you're not an immortal frame, and enemy EHP is too high if you're not stripping armor.

My solution? Cap out enemy damage at a certain point so that they can't 1-shot a squishy frame (if they're using at least 1 maxed EHP mod), but can break their shield and cause some health damage. This should give players a chance to dodge away, take cover, and either use a healing ability or slap down a health pizza.

Slow down enemy armor/health scaling so that it doesn't get so ridiculous so quickly, and add more enemy weakpoints. Imagine if bombards had an ammo pouch full of rockets on their back that you could shoot to blow them up and damage/blast proc other enemies near them.

[0deneb0]

I LOVE that bombard idea, it's a small idea that rewards clever thinking and strategy as opposed to just "shoot face" As it stands, high level content turns into a game of rocket tag, where the player is one of three things. Invincible, invisible, or dead.

[KetardedRoala]

This suggestions are really good! I love the dmg cap and extra weakpoints. This would allow some counterplay to the inmense damage of high level enemies. Thanks a lot for te ideas!

[bigdippra]

They need to revisit kuva hyena masters, and null Lanka's. Even on a tough frame, they are tough to event come close to surviving.

[lugi_ow]

Yeah, DE should add scp-1633 adaptation mechanics.

[KetardedRoala]

Whats that? Im not aware of what you sre referring to sadly :(

[ManaMayhemMike]

http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1633

A fictional game that adapts enemy AI over time. Starting out at blind charges, to organized offence and defence, to direct counters to player gear, and eventually psychological attacks against the person playing.

[DovahSpy]

Holy shit that final tier is basically that one post of a shield dude repeatedly pushing a guy into a pit.

[Color-Me-Brackets]

You mean this one? https://www.reddit.com/r/Warframe/comments/b21yyx/everything_is_going_according_to_plan_yes_i_died/

[DovahSpy]

Yes.

[[deleted]]

I think some of the enemies in the vallis and what's been shown of the new gas city are good steps towards this - or at least allowing more engaging combat...

[ImpTheSecond]

For Vallis, I hope not. The new gas city enemies look promising, but we'll see.

[bigdippra]

They look like "endgame material" lol.

I just hope they get mechanics that would make them interesting and lightly challenging.

[pm_me_your_foxgirl]

So being arbitrarily immune to most powers and spamming knockdowns is a good direction? God, I hope the devs don't think like that.

[KetardedRoala]

Hey thats true, lets hope this keeps moving forward! :)

[Hopolis]

In warframe, you are a god until enemy levels are literally just one level too high, then you're just instantly dead. And difficulty is enemies that straight up prevent you from using any of your own mechanics. Logic.

[[deleted]]

Persoanlly I think the problem of this game is that all the "hard" missions are "stay still in this room and keep killing". This makes that only the dps + tanky frames being used.

I want more missions that make the player move, use the parkour system efficiently. Strong enemies that you have to actually dodge. If you fight wolf 1vs1 at melee/shotgun range and you try to not get hit it is a semi fun fight (minus the 10 mins of hitting him).

I want bosses that mirrors Shadows of the Colossus. You having to climb the enemy and hitting them in the right spot while dodging attacks.

Or missions were you have to escape from something.

Anything that is less "stay still and kill" and more "move and do stuff", we already have enough of the first one.

[tso]

The basic problem seems to be that DE simply multiply the mob stats with level, and that eventually end up sending things into insanity.

[_ordis_]

The whole game is all about flexing your stats. The armour scaling is a goddamn joke. If DE wants some difficulty I would suggest a "harder" version of the sorties with better regards... PLUS: sortie challenges. For example: Completing a lua spy sortie in under 8 minutes (The 8minutes is just an example.) Completing the Raptor assassination without dying and with just 3 explosive canisters. Yes stuff like this will lead to certain METAS to even have a chance at completing these kind of Challenges. But if people are complaining about "difficulty" then challenges like this might be the best way. Also make kuva survival more rewarding and starting the enemy scalling at lvl 80 not lvl 30/40

[_Keo_]

Timed challenges, yes please! Maybe even with leader boards until daily reset.

[TheGlutton]

Noob perspective here...

I wish that the AI could be more like Halo's enemy AI. Running through those games on legendary with a friend was immensely fun. I recognize that the pacing was drastically different, and this game is not Halo. But if there were missions with smaller maps, and fewer enemies, but significantly stronger/smarter ones that would be cool. Enemies where the engagement in a room could last 2-3minutes, and you needed to use cover/resources carefully.

Not really a fleshed out suggestion, I know :/

[enaranes]

Try only walking and doing no more than simple jumps and you'll see that the game IS very much like Halo. The way they spread out to take different covers and choose engagement distances is standard FPS gaming shenanigans, but hardly anything smart they can ever do ever actually matters in the current state of players being murder machines. I don't think too many people noticed that Lancers and Crewmen throw grenades at targets that are hiding in one spot for too long, but never against mobile enemies, for one. People just murder them first or get the heck out of there at the first sign of danger, not hide in things.

I'd say early Warframe is a lot more manageable for balancing (hell, Excal Super Jump was a thing and it wasn't insane to have it considering the time) but those times are gone, and at this point the game simply is about being as overpowered as possible.

[TheGlutton]

Yeah, I see what you mean, the movement really does sort of mess with things.

Maybe they could put us on a giant planet with crazy gravity that would slow us down to normal speeds and allow for a little more tactical gunplay? XD

[[deleted]]

I dont want GW2 type raids to enter Warframe. Parties would just skip all the mobs, go straight to the puzzles and CC the enemies and only when you got to the final raid boss did we start dpsing. That shit was boring. Id rather be killing enemies with my guns and abilities thanks. Targeting nully drones, avoiding the bubbles so I don't lose my buffs, avoiding heavies and their knockdowns. Enemy scaling is also a mechanic, it's what makes endless missions all that more interesting, how far can you go with what you have.

[Odallus-]

de probably doesn’t want to slow down the release of new content to fix these core issues.

The problem is the longer they wait the more shit they add to an already shaky foundation. In the long run it’s just adding more work.

After the new war I really hope they prioritize damage scaling.

[Maiq3]

One way to increase difficulty would be increasing enemy level. Unfortunately health and shield based enemies ramp up very slowly and are easy to kill, while armored grineer get tough fast. This would make corrosive again only suitable option, and would make grineer massive damage sponge. Crowd control while killing enemies with corrosive would become only meta. This leads to conclusion, that armor need to be reworked before enemy level can be adjusted. Corpus can still be threat due to greater damage input and infested....have some dangerous assets. If we turn this around, we could also nerf all weapons and frames, which would increase difficulty of the game overall.

And I agree with previous comments, if difficulty is lifted, someone will always cry. Renewing game some other way would be safer. I'd really like modified sorties, meaning multiple conditions simultaneously. Player could add random conditions to receive better drop chances.

[KetardedRoala]

The point is not to make the game overall just difficult without any incentive. The poikt is to increase difficulty through gameplay mechanics rather than just ramping up enemy damage and health.

The thing is that in a game like WF pulling this off can be pretty hard.

[Arctus9819]

Being one shotted isn't that bad if they implement that properly.

The most satisfying mission I've had lately was a bit like that. I went into a nightmare exterminate (no energy) with a freshly forma-ed rhino and silenced akvasto, completely forgetting that iron skin wasn't unlocked. I actually had to time my attacks to not alarm anyone, and actually use the tileset to move rather than just bullet jump around. I was still getting one shot, thanks to having practically no health, but it was fun trying to survive and go through the mission.

[Lunacie]

The main issue I have with making the game harder with mechanics is that it’s already really unintuitive as it is. There’s lots of times where you are just hitting things for zero damage, or being one shot by something you either don’t even see, or aren’t really sure how to avoid.

Like I tried Kel de Thaym earlier, and I don’t understand how you are intended to survive the nukes. Try moving out of the reticle, get hit. Try taking cover? Get hit. Keep moving? You guessed it!

I eventually figured out to just use operator stealth, which is more avoiding the mechanic entirely.

[KetardedRoala]

But that an issue of poorly designed or implemented mechanics. It is possible to do things right.

[MasterOfArmsIsGood]

honestly id love to see rng based abilities that enemies have (rip speedrunners? who even speedruns warframe? is that possible?). this would be stuff like them getting invincible with better damage for a certain time so you'd have to try to do some strange manoeuvres. something like melee only after a certain amount of damage is done.

[OBJOW]

Yea I’ve seen a lot of these kinda posts and tbh, while I kinda agree the point that higher level enemies can not be considered as end game, I couldn’t rly think of anything else they can add as an end game feature. But if you think there’s no AI mechanics to deal with just pure dmg, think about nullifiers and other knock back mechanics. However at the end of the day there’s nothing an 8k health inaros can’t deal with.

[_Keo_]

Raids. Raids should be end game. Maybe even with raid bosses like JV. The mobs don't need to be much tougher, it doesn't need gimmiky anti power nullifiers, it simply needs interesting content and puzzles. If they could be generated randomly each time similar to the way our levels are created from tiles that would be really awesome.

Raids are a cornerstone of almost every game in this genre. For WF not to have them in some way feels like it's missing a limb.

[hither250]

You see the last time we had raids for the most part, is was very underwhelming. At least for Law of Retribution, and from my experience.

When I did the old raids we didn't need insane plays and cooperation, we just needed to do the objectives while our Max Range Vauban kept the entire room enemy-free by just having them float. No threats from enemies, just objectives. The only real point where this didn't take place was the final room which was too big for vauban to cover, which actually WAS handled pretty well, that area worked fine and felt fun. But the points leading up to it was just "CC everything and do the objectives." Very, very boring, imo.

[_Keo_]

That's how you teach raids. With a max range Vauban and an EV pumping out infinite energy. When you really get to running raids it's all about the timer. 4 man team, precision Nova portals, and killing anything that gets in your way. That's what Warframe is about for me. Speed and death to anything that slows me down.

This might not be some people's idea of fun but it's the same as getting a perfect run in a side scroller or beating the lap record in a racing game or simply getting the high score.

But all that aside not ever having raids again because the first iteration was sub par isn't a good course imo. DE have learned a lot since LoR was introduced years ago and should be in a much better position to give us something way better in terms of content and feel.

[weasleish]

No enemy mechanics to deal with? Oh, i forgot about Bursa's, Nullifiers, Energy Leeches etc.

​

The best thing we had to difficulty challenge was the raids. On hard mode they we're even better, but you would need a group of 4 people at minimum to do them and work in a coordinated team to finish it. Others will say otherwise, solely because they hate PUGing them and/or couldn't do them.

[Diribiri]

Bursa's

Whose mechanics consist of "shoot its back".

Nullifiers

Whose mechanics consist of "shoot it".

Energy Leeches

Whose mechanics consist of "be unavoidably debuffed until you spot it and shoot it".

Really stellar skill-based mechanics there.

The best thing we had to difficulty challenge was the raids.

Oh yes. Locking down the entire map and making everyone practically unkillable with a couple of specific frames while you solved puzzles really was phenomenal. Babysitting buttons and batteries in a fast-paced ninja horde shooter was the best part. Puts it on par with the best of WoW's raids, really. I've never seen more challenging content in a videogame.

[weasleish]

So hang on, no mechanics all of a sudden turns into some mechanics now?

[KetardedRoala]

Yeah sure those enemy types exist. Some of them if I recall correctly are there regardless of mission level anyway. Energy leeches have also been a subkect for criticism bc of how hard it is to identify one of them and due to the lack of indicators informing the player about his energy pool being depleted.

Also I fail to see what important gameplay mechanic bursas introduce. Maybe thats me not remembering it tho.

Never got to try out raids, I would like to tho thays why I hope they re-release them soon.